Signifying Gay Men in Korean TV Drama Fiction: Naturalizing the Normative in the Contrast of the Imagined Other

Abstract: This essay investigates, using semiotic deconstruction, how Korean TV fiction dramas signify gay men in the contrasting of a designated 'normal' that effectively communicates heteronormativity as "myth" obscuring other ‘alternative’ ways of life. This heteronormativity is neither universal nor eternal but is rather part of the situated collective imaginings of Korean communities and people. The conceptualizations of global cultural flows show the intense dissemination of culture that hybridizes not only notions of a nationalcommunity, but also worlds and people. This study explores the 'familiar' yet hybridized meanings of gay identity manifested in a selection of Korean dramas made possibly by disjunctive and multidirectional flows (of media, people, ideas, intimacies and more). While it shows the often marginalized constructions of gay men, it still shows a progressive push of diversifying representation of gay life, gradually claiming and inventing space not only on the margins but working their way toward the core: steadily undermining a heteronormative naturalized order.